1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a print apparatus which is equipped with a memory capable of holding compressed and already-extracted print information of plural pages transferred from a host computer, a print control method which is applicable to the print apparatus, a storage medium which stores a computer-readable program for executing the print control method, and the program.
2. Related Background Art
Conventionally, in a host-base printer, a whole system concerning printing is reset every time the printing of one page ends. Therefore, even when the size of fed paper is smaller than the paper size to which the printing is requested from a host computer and the number of generation of horizontal sync signals from a printer engine is smaller than the expected number, nonconformity does not occur in print data, whereby any incorrect print data is not output.
However, in recent years, the performance of host computer improves, and host interface technique improves, whereby host-base printer technique is applicable to a higher-speed printer engine.
Moreover, to improve the print performance, transfer control is executed so that compressed print image data of plural pages are transferred without any discontinuity.
However, in the print control system of this type, when the size of fed paper is smaller than the paper size to which the printing is requested from the host computer, there is a problem that the print data involuntarily remains because the expected number of generation of the horizontal sync signals is small, and thus incorrect or wrong data is output in the printing of a next page.
To solve this problem, there has been disclosed Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 2000-296657 (hereinafter called a document 1). More specifically, the document 1 proposes a method that a horizontal sync signal which is input to an image data output control circuit is devised so as to be able to be controlled from a CPU (central processing unit) mounted on a controller. Thus, according to this method, even when a paper to which the printing has been executed is discharged and the horizontal sync signal (BD) supplied from the printer engine is stopped, a pseudo horizontal sync signal (BD) is generated to output the remaining print data.
However, in the method proposed in the document 1, a time for continuously generating the pseudo horizontal sync signals (BD) is necessary. For this reason, the proposed method cannot deal with a high-speed printer engine of the type of feeding a next paper before starting the printing and of stopping or holding the fed next paper inside the body of the printer engine until the printing for the previous paper ends. This is because, if the method proposed in the document 1 is applied to the above high-speed printer engine, a problem that the next paper is fed up to the image formation position while the pseudo horizontal sync signal (BD) is being output occurs. Thus, due to this problem, an incorrect or wrong print result is output, whereby paper resources are wasted.